L. Reuteri: the most testo-genic and anabolic probiotic

 Let me tell you about a probiotic that might be fantastic for increasing your testosterone.

And it does have a bunch of other benefits as well, such as increasing testicular size, hair health, skin health, helping with anabolism, better muscle growth, wound healing, and lots of beneficial stuff.

Let’s dive in.

Testosterone levels drop due to unhealthy testes

Low testosterone is due to age-related lesions in the testes rather than irregular LH metabolism. In other words, the testes become damaged with age, which leads to low T. Very often LH stays normal, but testosterone production goes down.

Low testosterone has many side effects in aging men, including reduced spermatogenesis, libido and sexual function, increased body fat, decreased muscle and bone mass, low energy levels, fatigue, poor physical performance, depressed mood, and impaired cognitive dysfunction.

Low testosterone happens because the Leydig cells in the testes become unhealthy. If you want to optimize your testosterone, you have to improve the health of the Leydig cells.

When the researchers gave these animals L. Rueteri, they observed unusually large testis and social dominance behavior in the male mice (R). Their testes weren’t just the size of normal mice, but much bigger.

L. Reuteri and testicular size

In the graph below you can see the testes size at 5, 7,9 and 12 months of age. At every point in their lives, testicular size was bigger in the L. Reuteri group.

In the study, they used 4 groups:

• Control: Normal diet without L. Reuteri
• Control + L. reuteri
• NWD: a high fat diet intended to make the animals fat and inflamed with low testosterone
• NWD + L. reuteri

Testicular size was the biggest regardless of the diet these animals consumed.

L. Reuteri has also been shown to increase the Leydig cell number in the testes (R). When the testes get bigger, it doesn’t mean you have more Leydig cells, but testicular size correlates more with fertility than testosterone.

But L Reuteri has been shown to increase the Leydig cells as well (R). In the graph below, you can see that the testicular Leydig cell area and number were much bigger at all ages.

Absolute volume and number were higher, which means more testosterone.

L. Reuteri on testosterone

The researchers found that the animal getting L. Reuteri had significantly higher testosterone than the control group (R). What was most interesting is that the NWD group, which is supposed to be the most inflammatory diet, had the highest testosterone.

And I think the reason for that is because that diet was much higher in fat and we know that a certain amount of fat is needed for optimal testosterone production. So it’s possible that if you want to maximize your testosterone with L. reuteri, a high fat diet is the way to go.

L. Reuteri prevents testicular shrinkage with age

L. Reuteri has been shown to prevent this particular atrophy with age. As you can see in the graph below, there was almost no shrinkage over the lifetime of these animals when they used L. reuteri. So it prevents shrinkage, which is amazing.

Is a specific L. Reuteri strain needed to increase testosterone?

The specific strain that they used in the mouse study was the PTA 4675 strain, which you can get from BioGaia Osfortis (Amazon, iHerb).

However, that does not mean it’s the only strain that can get the job done.

Here is another study, where they used the BM36301 strain, which was also able to increase testosterone (R).

It is possible that most strains of L. Reuteri might increase testosterone at the right dose. Key term here: dose. If you check out most L. Reuteri brands online, the dose is around 100-200 million units, where you might need 50-100 billion units.

That’s why I’m using L. Reuteri from Toniiq, which is 50 billion units per cap. Bulkprobiotics also has a good one.

How L. Reuteri increases testosterone (mechanism of action)

One of the mechanisms of action appears to be by lowering the pro-inflammatory cytokine called IL-17 (R, R).

Interleukin 17 alone implicates a chronic inflammatory pathway in hypogonadism. So, ultimately, low testosterone with age is induced by inflammation, which comes from nutritional deficiencies and bad diet. Also, insufficient levels of interleukin 10, which is an anti-inflammatory cytokine, might increase the risk of autoimmunity, obesity, and other inflammatory syndromes.

So it’s this balance between interleukin 10 and interleukin 17 that matters. When you have too much interleukin 17, it’s creating an abundance of inflammation. When you have enough interleukin 10, it can inhibit interleukin 17, reduce inflammation and increase your testosterone. So you want to be dominant in interleukin 10, and this is what L Reuteri will help you to achieve.

L. Reuteri might also be able to increase testosterone through the oxytocin pathway since oxytocin has been shown to increase testosterone independent of LH.

L. Reuteri increases oxytocin

One of the main benefits of L. Reuteri is that it increases oxytocin levels in the body. Reuteri stimulates the intestinal wall to produce oxytocin. In this study, oxytocin increased by more than 3 fold (R).

Oxytocin is involved in social memory and attachment, sexual and maternal behavior, aggression, human bonding and trust, learning ability, anxiety, feeding behavior, and pain recognition. It’s also involved in social superiority with oxytocin, enhancing cooperation with social groups while promoting aggression towards competitors (R, R, R).

So within your circle of friends, you become a better friend. But towards the strangers, you might be more aggressive towards them because they’re like not in your group. They’re considered as competitors.

That’s at least what oxytocin does. It helps with kind of like that herd, that family bonding style hormone.

It could also be possible that L. Reuteri increases oxytocin in a dose-dependent manner, but that hasn’t been studied yet.

L. Reuteri speeds up wound healing and helps build muscle

Oxytocin (increased by L. Reuteri) accelerates wound healing and inhibits protein catabolism (R). When you inhibit catabolism, you are automatically more anabolic. Wound healing capabilities is the hallmark of sustained good health.

So if you can’t heal from an injury or it takes very long, that’s a sure sign that you’re not as healthy as you ought to be. And L Rudrai automatically makes you healthier and this speeds up wound healing.

Interesting fact about Trenbolone

Researchers gave:

• Sheep 60 milligrams of Trenbolone and six milligrams of Estradiol. Oxytocin levels increased by 2.3 fold in sheep (R).
• Cows 200 milligrams of Tren and 20 milligrams of estradiol. Oxytocin increases 50 fold (R).

Tren seems to increase oxytocin in a dose-dependent manner. There’s a big possibility that a part of the anabolism and the libido boost from Tren is due to oxytocin.

It’s very possible that when you use L reuteri, you can tap into some of those same benefits as if you were using Tren. Injecting oxytocin has also been shown to slow proteolysis (muscle breakdown) in rats, putting them in a more anabolic state.

L. Reuteri improves wound healing

In this study (R), they wounded animals to see how quickly they would heal while giving one group L. Reuteri. As you can see by day 6, the wound was almost completely healed in the reuteri group, and it was still a bit raw in the control group. By day 12 it was almost completely healed up, including hair and collagen.

The L. Reuteri group healed about twice as fast as the control group.

L. Reuteri has also been shown to speed up wound healing in humans (R).

The wound healing benefits are mostly coming from better immunity and higher oxytocin (R).

L. Reuteri helps you stay lean

L. Reuteri has been shown to keep these animals lean regardless of what they ate (R).

In this study, you can clearly see how the mice are leaner in the L. Reuteri group.

Also, in this study (R), the L. Reuteri mice looked much healthier, leaner, shinier, leaner, more energetic, and had more hair. You can see the control group (without Reuteri) was losing hair on the nose area. The reuteri group’s body weight was lower despite eating about the same amount of food (even slightly more than the control). But when you look at the activity level, the L reuteri group was much more active than the control group.

So chances are that even though L reuteri could speed up the metabolic rate, these animals were lighter because they had more energy and were more active at the same time, burning more calories. So just wanna point that out.

L. Reuteri increases dopamine and other neurotransmitters

L. Reuteri has been shown to increase dopamine and other neurotransmitters by lowering inflammation.

When you have inflammation, it depletes BH4, and BH4 is a co-factor for the production of dopamine and serotonin.

L. Reuteri has been shown to increase the production of BH4 by the intestinal wall and BH4 can then promote the release of dopamine and oxytocin, helping with mood, motivation, libido, anabolism, fat loss, etc (R, R, R).

Oxytocin itself stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain, which is involved in motivation, drive, libido and erections (R).

L. Reuteri has also been shown to produce GABA (R). GABA can activate the vagal nerve, helping to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, keeping you calm and anabolic.

Lastly, social interaction triggers a significant increase in the glutamate receptor AMPA versus the NMDA receptor ratio, which is potentiated by oxytocin (R). This simply means that L. reuteri, by enhancing oxytocin, boosts social interaction skills.

L. Reuteri helps lower cortisol

L. Reuteri is a great adaptogen and lowers cortisol, likely by lowering inflammation and increasing oxytocin (R). Low/normal cortisol, and high DHEA to cortisol ratio, are likely why these animals were more youthful into old age.

L. Reuteri boosts immunity

The thymus gland produces white blood cells which keep our immunity strong. The thymus gland shrinks with age, leading to impaired immunity. This predisposes older individuals to diseases because they can’t fight it off anymore.

L. Reuteri has been shown to increase the size of the thymus gland and improve immunity.

Less inflammation, bigger thymus weight, equals better/healthier/safer aging.

L. Reuteri improves thyroid function

The L. Reuteri fed animals had bigger thyroid glands (or at least it prevented the shrinkage of the thyroid with age) (R). Bigger thyroid (not goiter) leads to higher thyroid hormone production (as you can see by higher T4 levels), making you more pro-metabolic, feeling warmer and all of the beneficial stuff.

L. Reuteri enhances hair growth and health

L. Reuteri has been shown to improve hair health and make the hair thicker and healthier. Hair loss and thin, dull hair are early signs of being unhealthy.

The L. reuteri group had more hair, faster hair regrowth and healthier hair (shiny, not dry) (R).

Then also hair regrowth and growth speed (R). They shave these animals at the same time. After 5 days, the Reuteri had almost completely regrown their hair, whereas the control group barely had any regrowth.

Quite a few people have reported that their hair quality has improved with Reuteri and that they have started regrowing hair.

L. Reuteri has been shown to change the hair cycles in a positive way (R). It significantly reduced the telogen phase and enhanced the anagen phase. Which means less “hibernation” phase and more growth phase.

L. Reuteri enhances hair health and regrowth by:

• Enhancing IGF-1
• Oxytocin
• VEGF (growth of new blood vessels)
• Lowering inflammation
• Enhancing sebum production (dry hair = unhealthy hair)

L. Reuteri increases skin thickness

In terms of skin thickness, you can see that the L Ruderi group has much thicker skin compared to the control group. Skin thickness is a sign of health and thin skin is a sign of aging.

Summary

L. Reuteri is one of the most interesting probiotics in my opinion.

L. Reuteri might be good for increasing testosterone. I’m not exactly sure about the ideal dose. There might be a dose-dependent increase in testosterone. I’m not exactly sure, but a good starting dose according to the studies appears to be 10 billion units.

Also, very importantly, oxytocin can increase 5-alpha reductase, leading to higher DHT and allopregnanolone. These 5 alpha-reduced steroids can help enhance your sexual function, your libido mood, help against depression and anxiety, etc. And if you want to maximize your DHT and become alpha, check out my DHT course.

In summary, reuteri fed animals/humans:

• live longer (R)
• resist obesity
• Resist age-associated atrophic changes of skeletal muscle, testis, and thyroid and thymus glands
• have healthy fur coats
• heal their skin wounds faster
• are resistant to intestinal, mammary gland, liver, and lung cancer.
• shortens the duration of acute infectious diarrhea and improves abdominal pain in patients with colitis or inflammatory bowel disease (R)
• ameliorate dyspepsia and symptoms of gastritis in patients with HP infection. Moreover, it improves gut motility and chronic constipation (R)
• Improve lactose intolerance (R)
• reduces the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (R)

If you’ve used L. Reuteri in the past before or are using it, please let me know in the comments, how that works for you. I hope you learned something new and I’ll check in the next one.

Supplements

• BioGaia Osfortis (Amazon, iHerb) (5 billion units per cap)
• L. Reuteri from Toniiq, (50 billion units per cap).
• Bulkprobiotics (50 billion per serving)

Related articles you’ll like

• How to maximize your testosterone
• Glycine for boosting testosterone and building muscle
• How gut health impacts testosterone (gut testosterone axis)

Course you’ll like

• Maximize your DHT and become alpha

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Interestingly, its most recently discovered but not as well-characterized roles include interactions with body energy balance. mice deficient in Oxt receptor develop late-onset obesity. The lack of Oxt in our murin model also results in lower adrenalin levels which led us to hypothesize that the metabolic changes observed are associated with a decreased sympathetic nervous tone. (R)